18 May 2017Support for Assembly Joint Resolution 15 – Protecting California’s national monuments and the integrity of the Antiquities Act. These organizations wrote to California legislators Assemblymember Aguiar-Curry and Senator Dodd to thank them for championing an effort to re-state California’s ongoing commitment to national monuments. The groups urge the legislature to pass Assembly Joint Resolution 15 (AJR 15) in time for the June 8th anniversary of the Antiquities Act. On May 5, 2017, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a review of certain national monuments designated or expanded since 1996 under the Antiquities Act of 1906 in order to implement President Trump’s Executive Order 13792 dated April 26, 2017. The Secretary of the Interior will use the review to “determine whether each designation or expansion conforms to the policy stated in the Executive Order and to formulate recommendations for Presidential actions, legislative proposals, or other appropriate actions to carry out that policy.”1 The DOI notice identified twenty-seven National Monuments under review – including seven in California – and has invited comments to inform their review.

In this letter sent today to the State Water
Resources Control Board (State Board) and the Division of Oil, Gas and
Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) eleven
organizations including SFK raised a fundamental concern with the
process for exempting drinking water sources from the protections of the
Safe Drinking Water Act in order for oil and gas companies to inject
wastewater into aquifers. “The use of already depleted
groundwater aquifers to dispose of oil field wastewater is a wasteful,
unreasonable use of water. The State Board has a duty to nullify this
wasteful, unreasonable use of our aquifers, and to recalibrate and
rebalance the groundwater system in light of current and likely future
droughts and other threats posed by climate change.”

Amicus Brief about East Reservoir Project in Kootenai National Forest - Amici’s (impartial advisers to the court for this particular case) interest in this matter is twofold. First, this case illuminates one of the most relevant issues in public lands today, local influence over forests that belong to the American public. Amici have an interest in ensuring that local interests and influence, which ultimately serve certain private interests, will not be given undue weight in an assessment of the legal merits of East Reservoir project -- a project that will heavily impact lands owned by the American people and their interests. Second, National forests, including the Kootenai National Forest, offer some of the most intact ecosystems which exist in the West, and often serve as the last refuge for threatened or endangered species such as the Lynx and the Grizzly Bear at issue in this case. Amici have an interest in ensuring that the East Reservoir Project will not unnecessarily damage this ecosystem and will adequately protect threatened and endangered species in compliance with the law.